by Maia Dylan
Cassadee spent the rest of the day preparing for her match, psychically reaching out to her supporters in the pride to tell them the timeline had been moved forward and to try to calm her mates down. As the time neared, they grew quieter, either trying to give her time to get her head around what she must do that night or having a hard time dealing with it all themselves. She dressed in tight yoga pants and a sports bra, knowing that at some point she would need to shift, but that they would start hand-to-hand first as tradition insisted.
When they arrived at the clearing Cassadee thought it was ironic that this final chapter would take place here, in the forest beneath the ridge where she had fought Bryan the night of the fire. The moon was big and round in the sky and cast an eerie light on everything, turning the forest into a convoluted twist of shadows. When they stepped out farther into the clearing, she saw that her father and his seconds had arrived first, along with a few of her father’s supporters in the pride. Bryan was standing in the middle of the clearing, clearly waiting for her.
Cassadee turned to face her mates, just as Ty, Trent, and Faith came walking out of the forest. “I know this is going to be hard for you both, but I need you to trust me, and know that I will be fine. You cannot interfere.”
Both her mates were positively shaking with tension. Their jaws were so tight she saw she heard their teeth gnashing together and their eyes blazed blue.
“You come back to us, Cassie,” Sam growled. “If we lose you I don’t know what will happen.”
He lifted her up off the ground and kissed her, hard. Cassadee melted against him. When he put her down, her heart was racing. She turned to AJ. He lifted her just as Sam had and kissed her just as hard and just as passionately. When he placed her back on her feet he grinned.
“Don’t take too long, baby. I’m thinking we should try out the armchair in the lounge and see if that should be bronzed as well as the ottoman.”
Cassadee laughed and rubbed her nose against him. She still had a loving smile on her face as she turned, which she guessed was AJ’s intention, given how Adam, her father, and her brother all hissed in anger at the look.
She walked calmly toward the group, her mates and the alphas beside her until they stood on opposite sides of the expanse in the middle of the clearing. Then they stopped and allowed her to move forward. She felt Bryan trying to place a psychic thread in her mind, one filled with self-doubt and dread. She waited until she was nearer to center of the clearing before she turned to look at her brother. Seeing the nasty little shit-eating grin on his face, she smiled sweetly, then threw a psychic blast down the thread he had tried to lay and watched as he roared in pain, grabbed his head, and dropped to one knee. She turned to her father, who was positively salivating with glee as he watched Bryan struggle to regain his footing.
“Cassadee! My darling, you have gotten stronger.”
He turned to her and she saw that the mad that had been a mere glint in his eye that afternoon was now a raging inferno.
“Kill him quickly and then come home and take your rightful place in our pride.”
“Father!” Bryan shouted, pain, and determination ringing in his tone. “I will win this fight for you. I will show you where the real strength lies in your children. Once I have killed this bitch once and for all, I will rule by your side!”
Well, wasn’t this just a happy family. “I, Cassadee Shaw”—she stressed her last name, knowing it would further irritate her father—“accept your challenge, Bryan Hubbard.”
Then the match began. Bryan’s first attack was his standard go-to move. He threw a psychic blast at her, one that she had no problem deflecting. She had always simply gone on the defensive and worn him down in the past, but she was pissed off. Her older brother, someone who she should have been able to look up to and rely on for protection, had called her out and challenged her to a fucking death match. Who the hell did that?
So instead of opting to defend until she could disable, she stepped into him and attacked. She was smaller than Bryan by quite a bit, but she had always been faster, so she moved right into him limiting the space he had to move and then struck, punching up with the palm of her hand to connect with his chin, lifting her leg to ram her knee into his stomach she rejoiced when he grunted then spinning quickly she lifted her right elbow and slammed it into his mouth so hard he staggered back a few steps. She turned and watched him as he wiped the blood off his chin and spat on the forest floor.
“Well, sister, dear, it seems you’ve been training a little more than usual. I thought your fat ass looked a little smaller.”
Bryan started to circle around looking for an opportunity to strike. Cassadee circled with him, matching him step for step. “Why, Bryan, how nice of you to notice!” Cassadee kept her voice light and friendly, knowing her calm and friendly tone would be driving him crazy.
“Fat or not, you’ll die just as fast, either way,” Bryan snarled at her, the blood standing out on his teeth.
“I don’t know, Bry. Daddy seems to think this is a done deal.” Cassadee only ever called her father “daddy” when she wanted to rub in the fact that he thought more of her than him.
She watched his teeth snap together and braced for the attack. She threw up a shield seconds before he threw another psychic blast in her direction, this one much bigger and harder than the first, causing her to stagger a little, giving Bryan the chance to step in and backhand her hard across the mouth. She fell to the ground, her head spinning, but managed to through her leg out to sweep his right foot out from under him when he lifted his left to kick her. Bryan fell hard on his back. Cassadee rolled and brought her elbow down hard on his sternum before rolling to the side and then to her feet again.
Her head was still spinning from the backhand and the psychic bitch slap Bryan had just sent her way. He had never been that strong before, what the fuck. She turned to her father and saw his evil smirk. That fucker had given him something else to enhance his psychic strength. What a prick! Just as she was scrambling to come up with her next move, she caught a psychic feeling of intense satisfaction from her brother. He was about to do something he saw as a game winner. Pushing into his head, she read his intentions. Bryan roared in fury that she had been able to penetrate his shields so completely and read him.
She had just pulled the thoughts from his head when he charged her, rammed his shoulder into her stomach, lifted her into the air, and then drove her hard into the ground. Cassadee grunted, winded by impact, and felt a wave of panic as Bryan managed to get his hands to her throat. She heard her mates roar her name and then curse, seeking their minds with her own she saw their rage at what was happening but also at Ty and Trent, who were keeping them back.
“AJ! Sam!” she screamed into their heads. “I have enough on my hands at the moment without worrying that you two will fucking ruin everything now. Back the fuck off!” Then she closed the link, swung her right arm around in a high arc, and drove his hands down and away from her throat while rolling out from under him. Growling and swallowing painfully she felt the rivulets of blood that slide down her neck from his claws.
“Come on, Bry, you got more than that.” Cassadee spat blood onto the ground and side-stepped so that she and Bryan circled each other. “Why don’t you play that game-winning card you think you have and let’s see how that pans out for you.”
“Fuck you, Cassadee. You think you’re so damn perfect!” Bryan spat at her. “All my fucking life it’s been all about you, everything was done for you, well fuck that and fuck you! This right here? This battle in this godforsaken field in the middle of fucking nowhere is all about me!” Then he struck, a psychic blast pummeled her, causing her drop to one knee at the pain. Then a ball of flame burst behind him, lighting the fucking field up in flames. “You are going to burn this time, bitch, and there ain’t nothing you can do to stop it!”
Cassadee fought the pain trying desperately to push through it. She remained kneeling before her brother who had been laughing ma
nically as he started throwing the flames around the field, driving them toward her mates and her friends.
“Cassie, baby!” Sam’s calm voice echoed throughout the field, rolling over her and calming her like nothing else could. “Could you do me a favor, love, and stop fucking around with this asshole? End him so I can get to killing Adam. Otherwise, we’re going to be here all fucking night.”
Sam’s voice was the perfect mix of unconcern with an air of boredom. Bryan’s laughter came to an abrupt end.
Cassadee grabbed the pain that was echoing around her head and simply pushed it down, making it smaller and smaller inside her until she simply failed to acknowledge its existence. Taking her lead from Sam she stood up staring at Bryan calmly. “Yes, my love, I’ll get right on that.” Then she struck as hard and as fast as she could psychically, not moving a muscle.
Even though she was bombarded by psychic blasts from Bryan she took control of the flames and brought them under control all the while keeping Bryan completely immobile and firing blast after blast at him in defense. As soon as the fire was contained, she simply envisioned holding the flames in the palm of her hand, then closing her fist around it and extinguishing it completely. Bryan’s roar of anger didn’t faze her. Then she concentrated her focus completely to her brother. She had been about to level him with such a psychic overload that he would never have been able to survive when Bryan suddenly roared and grabbed his head. What the fuck?
She watched in horror as he suddenly dropped to his hands and knees, blood pouring from his nose. Cassadee looked at her father. What she saw stunned the hell out of her. He wasn’t horrified like the rest of the group gathered or concerned that his eldest child was currently screaming in pain and bleeding profusely from the nose. No, her fucking father stood there looking nothing but satisfied.
“Bryan!” Cassadee ran to him even as she heard her mates roar her name. She dropped to her knees as Bryan collapsed to the ground. She turned him so that he could cough up the blood that was filling his mouth. “Jesus, Bryan, what the fuck did he do to you?”
Bryan looked at her, one of his pupils already fully dilated, he was trying to mouth words, to tell her what, she would never know, seconds after she knelt beside him he started convulsing, and then he simply stopped.
Cassadee pressed her fingers against his neck, even though she knew it was pointless. Her father had done this to Bryan. He had turned her brother into a fucking lunatic who just craved his acceptance. He had them fighting each other time and time again, and for what? To prove to him who was fastest? Who was strongest?
She laid her brother on the ground, stood, and looked around her. Her mates looked over at her with concern, wanting to come to her, but knowing that it wasn’t quite finished. Faith looked at her in sympathy and horror, but both Ty and Trent were looking in her father’s direction. When she turned to her father she saw that more of his followers had joined them. There were now eight of them and five were fully shifted. I guess it’s time for the final chapter.
“Cassadee!” her father called. “I have let this go on for far too long. You need to come back to Western Springs. We have come to bring you home. There doesn’t need to be any bloodshed—”
Cassadee snorted loudly, not overly ladylike but too damn bad. “No bloodshed, Father? What the hell do you call that?” She pointed at her brother’s body. “Whatever the fuck you were trying to do with Bryan didn’t bloody work.”
Julius stepped forward a step but stopped when growls filled the air. “He was flawed, Cassadee. His mind couldn’t handle the enhancements like yours can. But I know you! I knew that you would never forgive yourself if you had been the one to kill your own brother! You never would have been able to come home with that on your conscience.”
Horrified, Cassadee connected the dots and stared at Julius Hubbard like he was the monster he actually was. “You killed Bryan. You knew he would hemorrhage like that if he tried something that big, didn’t you? What kind of man would fucking do that to his own son! What gives you the right to play God?” She knew she was screaming and that she was close to flipping the fuck out.
She felt fur brush against her arm, when she looked down she saw two big beautiful gray wolves standing on either side of her. Her mates had come to support her. Seeing them standing with her, Julius’s eyes narrowed and his face filled with fury.
“Those fucking dogs are not your mates. Adam will be your mate, and you will give him cubs that will shift, and we will be the strongest shifters ever to have walked this earth. Now get the fuck over here!”
Sam and AJ both tensed, snarling furiously in his direction.
“Just go home, Julius. As far as I am concerned, I am a Grey River Pack shifter. This is my home and you are not my father!” She turned to Adam and could see him shaking with rage. His eyes blazed amber. His lion was close to the surface. “Never in this lifetime, Adam.”
Her father suddenly threw his head back and roared, tearing his shirt from his body as he went. His hands had partially shifted, and he had gouged his chest with his own nails. He pointed at her as he screamed, “Cassadee Hubbard! I challenge you to—”
He never finished that statement, because Ty stepped forward and interrupted him by shouting, “As alpha of the Grey River pack I call for Damnatio ad Bestias.”
Everyone fell silent under the swell of his dominance. Ty had called for something that Cassadee had only ever heard of as myth, and knew of no instances when it had ever been called for. Damnatio ad Bestias was Latin meaning “condemnation to beasts.” It was called against the leader of a shifter group when it was deemed that his or her actions required swift justice. If the accused was condemned, it was a death sentence.
Ty walked toward Julius. Halfway across he made a deep chuffing noise, a short sharp sound that came straight from his chest, and suddenly the forest was filled with howls as at least thirty wolves stepped into the clearing.
“Julius Hubbard, I accuse you of crimes against your own pride. I accuse you of the continued abuse of your children since you murdered their mother. I accuse you of the murder of your own damn son, which you have admitted to tonight in front of everyone here. By the blood of your family spilled on my land I claim justice be served in the form of Damnatio ad Bestias.”
Ty now stood right in front of Julius, eyes blazing blue, seeming to swell in size. Her father narrowed his eyes and growled.
“There can be no claim of condemnation without acceptance from my pride, which I can assure you will not happen here tonight.”
“Cassadee.”
Ty had insisted on her having her pride here to witness the death match, but he had not mentioned this little twist. Smart wolf! She had called for some of her pride to witness the death match but didn’t know if any had come. Closing her eyes, she sent her mind out into the forest to see if any of her pride was there. What she found had her gasping in surprise.
Chapter 9
“Ronan! Niall!” she called loud and clear. “Come forward, cousins.” She turned to look at her father, reveling in the shock that filled his face. Ronan and Niall had fought against her father’s rule for as long as she could remember. Her cousins came out of the forest, fierce grins on their faces, never taking their eyes from Julius. Then the others came, twelve in all, more than enough for this to be a righteous claim.
“What are you doing here? You were not given permission to leave pride lands!” Julius pointed at the twelve men looking to be free of him.
“Actually, Julian,” Ronan said with a sneer, “we received a call for help from our queen.”
Julius spun toward her, eyes blazing amber. “You betrayed your own father! How dare you do that! I’m your fucking family!”
Something just snapped inside of her. Everyone had a limit. A breaking point when you went from rational, calm woman standing between her mates, to being a partially shifter lioness with her hand-claws wrapped around her father’s neck snarling. “Family? You want to fucking talk to me about
family! You killed your wife! You killed your son! And you dare to talk to me about betrayal!”
Her father was trying to rip her hands away from his neck, but he was wasting his time. She had pushed into his mind uninvited and without care of any physical pain she might inflict and had completely shut him down. Try as he might he had no chance of calling to his animal, she had placed a barrier between him and his animal, and she had to admit, she liked having him at her mercy.
“Now, Father,” she sneered, “shut—the hell—up. Ty! Complete the trial.”
“What a bloody good idea. Ronan, Niall, and friends, welcome.” Ty turned and nodded in their direction. “I have outlined the accusations against your king. Do you accept these charges as truth?”
A few of Julius’s supporters voiced their refusal to accept it but were drowned out by the rousing acceptance of Ronan and the others.
“We’ll take that as a yes.” Ty seemed to be enjoying his role of prosecutor. “Now in the spirit of fairness, and to be fair it doesn’t matter what the fuck you have to say because you have admitted to most heinous of the charges levied against you, do you Julius Hubbard have anything to say in your defense?”
“Ack—” was all he got out before Cassadee tightened her grip.
“Okay, we’ll take that as a no.” Ty, his eyes blazing blue, his rage palpable, came forward to stand beside her and Julius. “You have been accused of crimes against your pride. You have been accused of murdering your own family and have admitted to that here! Your own pride has found you guilty of these charges, and as is my right as alpha and leader of the lands on which you spilled the blood of your own goddamn son, I sentence you to Damnatio ad Bestias.”
A roar came from behind Ty, along with a shimmer of energy that accompanied a shift. Cassadee whirled in time to see Adam, fully shifted mountain lion, heading straight for her. She threw her father from her and shifted with a speed that surprised even her. The large mountain lion approached her, gathering speed as it crossed the clearing intent on getting to her. She had tried to crash into his mind and shut him down, but he was so far gone his animal was completely in charge. She tensed anticipating his impact, but it never came.